2011 May | Video Contest News - Featuring News about Video Contests!

Jackson Hewitt promises to pick a “Big Check” winner

Posted by Dan L. on May 31st, 2011

Yesterday, after receiving a tip from a reader I explained that Jackson Hewitt had filed for bankruptcy last week and consequently their “” video contest had fallen into legal limbo. The company pulled the rules and a relevant video from the web and they had stopped responding to the finalist’s calls and messages. It seemed like Jackson Hewitt had decided never to pick a winner and just pretend like the contest simply never happened. And because filing for Chapter 11 protects a company from civil suits and from paying off their debts, it would be nearly impossible for the finalists to force Jackson Hewitt to pick a winner and pay out the $20,000 prize.

But this afternoon, after nearly 6 weeks of silence, this message appeared on the “Big Check” facebook page:

So what happened? How come Jackson Hewitt suddenly remembered they were running a video contest? Well….I think it was me! I checked my traffic logs and I noticed that someone from Jackson Hewitt’s headquarters in Parsippany, New Jersey viewed my “Big Check” post today. And a few minutes later, the company announced they’d finally pick a winner next week. Good for them for doing the right thing. I guess sometimes big companies just need a friendly (and public) reminder when they fail to fulfill their obligations. So if you happen to be one of the “Big Check” finalists and you wind up winning, be sure to remember to cut me off a slice of that 20K!

June 1, 2011 Update: Ah ha, it seems the mystery may have been solved. I heard from one of the finalists in this contest today and he said that he liked my last post so much that he posted it onto every Jackson Hewitt facebook page he could find! He added the note, “Look how Jackson Hewitt botched the Big Check contest.” The comments were quickly deleted and JH immediately announced they would be picking a winner next week. Teamwork: FTW!

Jackson Hewitt fails to pay out $20K in contest prizes

Posted by Dan L. on May 30th, 2011

On March 1st, the Tax prep company Jackson Hewitt announced the start of their “Win Win with the Big Check” video contest. People were supposed to print out a big “check” that said “Win Win” on it from the contest site and then film themselves passing the check from their left to their right. The idea was that Jackson Hewitt would edit all the entries together and it would look like dozens of people were handing around the same piece of paper. Twenty finalists would be picked via a public vote and then Jackson Hewitt would pick one grand prize winner. That lucky individual would win $10,000 plus they would also get to pick a friend or family member that would receive an extra $10,000. (hence the name “Win Win.”)

On April 19th, Jackson Hewitt announced 20 finalists and posted the video montage of all the entries on their facebook page. Here it is:

Oooops….that video is set to private. That’s weird. But you know what’s even weirder? A reader who happened to make the finals of this contest e-mailed me last week and said that the official “Big Check” rules have disappeared from the web. On top of that, Jackson Hewitt has recently stopped responding to calls and e-mails from the finalists and someone at the company has been deleting the “what’s happening with this contest?” messages that people have been posting to the official .

So did happen to this contest? Bankruptcy…that’s what happened. Last Tuesday Jackson Hewitt filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. That means that if you were one of the 20 finalists in their big “Win Win” video contest you’re pretty much shit out of luck! There is almost no chance in hell that the $20,000 in prize money will ever be awarded to anyone. Almost 6 weeks have gone by without any winner being announced. And I think that delay was intentional. You see, if Jackson Hewitt had picked a winner before filing Chapter 11 that person would be able to participate in the company’s bankruptcy proceedings. They could make a claim against them and eventually get some or all of their $20,000 prize. But since no winners were picked, Jackson Hewitt doesn’t technically owe any one person the prize money.

The rules of a contest are like a contract between the sponsor and the contestants. Contestants create entries in exchange for an opportunity to win the promised prizes. If a company just decided not to pay out those promised prizes, all the contestants could file a civil suit against the company. But you can’t actually sue a company for something that happened before they filed for Chapter 11 protection until after they emerge from bankruptcy. So even if a finalist in the Win Win contest wanted to try and force Jackson Hewitt to pay up they’ll have to wait a long ass time before they can file a civil suit.

Now obviously I don’t think anyone of importance at Jackson Hewitt was thinking about some little video contest when they were getting ready to file for bankruptcy. But I do think that the folks in the marketing department were probably told a few weeks ago they should stop paying their debts because something was about to happen. So the team in charge of the contest dragged their feet on picking a winner for as few weeks and now, whoops…they can’t pay out the prize money because suddenly the company is in Chapter 11.

If you were a finalist in Jackson Hewitt’s “Win Win’ video contest, be sure to send me an e-mail if the company ever does anything to make this right. I think the decent thing for Jackson Hewitt to do would be to contact the finalists ASAP and say a winner will be declared once the company comes out of Chapter 11. Or maybe they could promise to eventually just split the $20,000 among the 20 finalists. But I think it’s a lot more likely that Jackson Hewitt will just pretend like this contest never happened and never pay out the promised prize money.

June 1, 2011 Update: Looks like Jackson Hewitt just needed to be reminded that they were running a video contest. A finalist in the “Big Check” contest sent this post the JH and now the company has announced they’ll be picking a winner next week. Full story here: https://videocontestnews.com/2011/05/31/jackson-hewitt-promises-to-pick-a-big-check-winner/

Dell buys $100,000 worth of Poptent videos

Posted by Dan L. on May 23rd, 2011

There are a lot of reasons to like Poptent. But probably the best thing about the site is that their clients often wind up buying more videos then they have to after an assignment ends. Case in point, Dell computers just bought 10 Poptent-made promos for $10,000 a piece. Originally they were committed to buy only 4 videos. But the quality of the submissions was so high that Dell decided to spend an extra $60,000 on 6 more videos. This is the type of thing that just doesn’t happen in standard video contests. Actually, if this Dell assignment was a standard video contest, it would have turned out to be one of the biggest contests in history. Seriously, 10 videos being purchased for $10,000 a piece is kind of amazing.

I’m not going to post all 10 videos but here are a few of my favorites. You can see all the results here. If you’re not familiar with this assignment, it was supposed to portray IT people as heroes who save the day with Dell technology. Also, if filmmakers didn’t have access to the right kind of Dell laptop or smart phone they were supposed to use any laptop or phone they could find and then do a re-shoot with the real stuff later. So if you notice some non-Dell products in these videos, that’s why.

Purchased by Dell. Price: $10,000 each:

Taxslayer screws up their video contest AGAIN!

Posted by Dan L. on May 18th, 2011

Other than Dorito’s Crash the Super Bowl contest, Taxslayer.com’s annual video contest may be the longest running video contest on the web. It was started way, way back in the pre-HD dark ages of 2008. That first installment of the contest was run before my time so I don’t really know how smoothly it went. But I do know that one submitted commercial won $25,000 and even aired on TV during the 2009 tax season. But after that first year, Taxslayer has managed to run one terrible contest after another. The ineptitude of the contest organizers and their lack of respect for their contestants is just ridiculous. For the third year in a row, Taxslayer allowed filmmakers to waste time and money by changing the contest weeks after it was launched. (I don’t want to clog up this post with old news so if you’d like to read about how Taxslayer screwed up their 2009 and 2010 video contests, click the comment button for a quick explanation) I don’t know if account-types just don’t understand how to communicate with creative-types but I think it’s more likely Taxslayer just doesn’t give a shit about the people who enter their contests.

The 2010 Taxslayer contest was such a disaster (they retroactively canceled the contest 3 weeks after the deadline passed so they wouldn’t have to pay out any prizes) that I was totally flabbergasted when I learned that they were going to try and and run a new version of the contest for 2011. For the first time, Taxslayer abandoned the “make our next TV commercial” idea and replaced it with a good, old-fashioned video contest. The requirements were simple; contestants had to make a video that demonstrated “The Craziest of Funniest way you’ve ever done your taxes.” And to make things even simpler, Taxslayer even said they were NOT looking for commercials for their company. They just wanted funny videos. In fact, the videos only needed to mention “Taxslayer” once. So again, it really seemed like they did NOT want a standard commercial-style video.

Because Taxslayer screwed their contestants so badly last year I decided to stay far away from this year’s version. I had pretty much forgotten about the contest when one day about 6 weeks ago I got 3 e-mails in one afternoon from filmmakers who had just recived strange e-mails from Taxslayer. The letters they got notified them that their entries (and a lot of other entries) were being pulled from the contest. Here’s a copy of the letter the rejected filmmakers got:

So Taxslayer bounced the entries that didn't meet the established guidelines. Or at least that's what they said. What really happened is that the people who set up this contest screwed up and didn't communicate to contestants what they actually wanted. Here's a screen grab that a contestant sent to me of the original rules:

In case you can’t read that tiny, fuzzy type, the rules say that contestants should:

“Submit a video demonstrating the craziest or funniest way you’ve done your taxes. Entries should reference Taxslayer at least once.”

But compare that to this line from the letter that the rejected filmmakers received:

“We would like a short video demonstrating the craziest or funniest way you’ve done your taxes WITH TAXSLAYER.COM.”

Catch the difference? In the original rules, Taxslayer forgot to mention the “with Taxslayer.com” part. So naturally, filmmakers shot videos that showed a crazy way they had done their taxes WITHOUT taxslayer. I know that’s what I would have done. It seemed like the whole point of the contest was to show how crazy it is to do your taxes without Taxslayer.

Because the folks at Taxslayer were simply to incompetent too articulate exactly what kind of videos they wanted, they decided to punish filmmakers for not being able to read their minds. They rejected all the entries that weren’t about Taxslayer and told contestants they could re-edit their entries to comply with the (new) guidelines. To be fair, Taxslayer did tell filmmakers that they could re-submit their videos without making any changes but come on….there was no way any of those entries ever had a shot at winning.

Here’s the video that Taxslayer ultimately selected as this year’s winner:

2011 Taxslayer winner. Prize: $10,000:

That’s actually a pretty good video. I like it and it perfectly fits the contest “guidelines.” And it’s even kind of topical, no? Taxslayer just announced the winner on May 5th so I can’t help but wonder if the recent news about the Seal team that took out Osama Bin Laden influenced the judges decisions.

At this point I’d post a link to the contest page and encourage you to check out the other entries…but I can’t. Taxslayer pulled the entire contest off the web almost as soon as the winner was announced. You can’t even watch the winning video on any of taxslayer’s sites. It’s only by luck that I happened to find a version of the winning commercial on vimeo. And yes…the video that won is a commercial. For all of Taxslayer’s talk about how they didn’t want an “ad” they wound up picking a video that looks a whole lot like a TV commercial. It’s 30 seconds long, it ends with a Taxslayer.com title card and even demonstrates that you can do your taxes on taxslayer from your Ipad.

When Taxslayer canceled last year’s video contest I thought for sure they wouldn’t have the balls to try and run it again this year. So will Taxslayer bring the contest back in 2012? Oh, I’m sure they will. But if they do, take my advice; don’t waste your time, money and talent entering. If you do enter I’m sure you’ll only wind up getting screwed over in some new, crazy way.

Facebook starts shutting down unauthorized contests

Posted by Dan L. on May 13th, 2011

On Wednesday, Facebook made some important changes to their “Promotions Guidelines” that video contest filmmakers should be aware of. Thousands and thousands of companies (and even individuals) have been running contests of all types using their facebook pages. That’s not exactly legal though so Facebook is cracking down and deleting unauthorized contests. But this isn’t just a legal thing. If some small business runs a contest where voters have to “like’ their page and then vote by “liking” an entry, well…facebook doesn’t make any money off of that. So now if Joe’s Pizza of Akron, Ohio wants to run an ultimate fan video contest they need to pay a facebook-approved company to run that contest as an app. Here are some of the more interesting restrictions from Facebook’s :

Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or an app on a Page Tab.

You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion.

You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app.

These new rules probably won’t have any effect on most of the facebook-based video contests you may encounter. But beware: If you come across a video contest where likes count as votes, don’t enter! Because that contest (and the sponsors page) could be zapped out of existence at any moment.

And that’s a good thing. Unauthorized contests are sketchy and I personally don’t enter them. On the other hand, I think video contests that are run as facebook apps are great. It’s easy to get people to vote since you don’t have to register. Even better though, it’s really hard for people to vote for themselves over and over on facebook. The big name in facebook-based video contests seems to be a company called Wildfireapp. () So man, these new changes are going to be really good news for them. Wildfire is running the Dairy Queen contest I’m in right now and I’m pretty happy with how it’s going. Oh yeah….did I mention I’m a finalist in Dairy Queen’s “Mini Blizzard Treatment contest!?” I have a 1 in 6 chance of winning one of six Mini Coopers!! But I need votes to win. If you haven’t already, please do me a major solid and vote for my video. It only takes like 5 seconds plus you’ll get to see a real life App-run facebook contest with your own eyes!

CLICK THE IMAGE TO VOTE!

Voting is open until May 17th so vote while you can! You only need to vote once though. This is a really exciting contest and I swear, if I win i will be RETIRING from video contests that use votes alone to determine the winners. Trying to get people to vote for you is just too much work!

One again, click here to vote:

THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT EVERYBODY!!!

Jackson Hewitt’s “Win Win” contestant montage

Posted by Dan L. on May 10th, 2011

I always like it when companies come up with a unique twist for their video contests. And this year’s Jackson Hewitt contest is a nice example of that kind of creative marketing. Back during tax season they asked people to submit videos of themselves passing a printed “check” from their left to their right. The idea was that after the contest was over, some poor editor would try and make a decent montage out of all the entries. The person who made the best video would get a “Win Win.” By that I mean they would win a $10,000 check for themselves and a $10,000 check for a friend. The winners haven’t been announced yet but that montage video I mentioned is already finished. I watched a lot of the entries in this contest since I was thinking about entering and I can tell you…most of them were not so great. But whoever cut this montage together did an excellent job. Check it out:

Oh crap! See that guy in the bright red shirt in that youtube video!? That guy beat me in the Dunkin Donuts contest last year and won a trip to Costa Rica! And right now we’re both finalists in the Dairy Queen contest! Man, he really gets around. Oh, speaking of the Dairy Queen contest, apparently you can now vote for my entry EVERY DAY! So if you’re on facebook, please do me a solid and throw me a vote:

Vote for me in DQ’s Mini Blizzard video contest!!!!!

Posted by Dan L. on May 4th, 2011

AHHHHHHH!!! Today I found out that I made the finals of Dairy Queen’s “Mini Blizzard Treatment” video contest! I knew that they were getting a lot of entries so I really thought my chances of advancing were slim. Out of the 350 videos submitted, DQ picked just 24 finalists and was one of them! Dairy Queen is giving away 6 MINI COOPERS to the finalist videos that get the most votes on facebook. So the calculator in my brain tells me that means I now have a 1 in 4 chance of winning a car!

Oh my friends…my dear, dear blog-reading friends. I need you…I need you now more than ever. Won’t you please help put your pal Beardy in one of those sweet, Blizzard themed (I want the Oreo one) Mini Coopers?? Votes alone determine the 6 winners. Fortunately, the voting is being done through facebook which means it’s going to be really hard for anyone to cheat. Plus, voting is incredibly easy to do if you have a facebook page. All you have to do is click the VOTE FOR THIS VIDEO button while logged into your account. No registration is needed.

Yes, Beardy's beard was briefly transformed into a pair of muttonchops last week

I can’t tell you how freaking stoked I would be if I won this contest. I’d be so happy that I swear, I would straight up RETIRE from video contests where votes alone determine the winners. So please, won’t you help me go out on a win? If you cast a vote for my video, leave a comment on this post or send me an e-mail and I guarantee that if you’re ever in need of votes for a contest I’ll get ya’ back. Hell, I’ll even promote your video here on VCN! To vote my video, click here:

Thanks everybody! Check back in 2 weeks to see if I won!

Enter this! Spendster’s Reality Check Challenge

Posted by Dan L. on May 2nd, 2011

I almost never promote new video contests because sites like OVC and Film the Next already do a great job listing them as soon as they’re announced. But the new video contest being run by Spendster.org is so good that I just had to mention it. Plus it turns out I’m ineligible to enter because I won a prize in Spendster’s last contest. So you guys are going to have to go out and win this one for the Beardster.

The contest is incredibly easy to enter. All you do is shoot a simple video that’s under 60 seconds long where you talk about something you wasted a bunch of money on. That’s it. Quality doesn’t matter at all. The winners are picked by an on-going, public vote.

And man, are there going to be a lot of winners in this contest. The prizes aren’t huge, not at all. But Spendster is giving away so MANY small prizes that if you shoot a video you’ll probably wind up winning something. First place will get you $1,000, second will get you $750 and third will get you $500. And after that, FIFTY people will each win a $100 visa gift card as a runner-up prize. FIFTY PEOPLE!

I recommend you don’t even try to get enough votes to land in the top 3. Just shoot for winning one of the runner-up prizes. Sure, 100 bucks isn’t much money but it’s certainly better than a punch in the face. And if you’re new to video contests and have never won a prize before this is an easy way to bust your cherry. Or maybe you’ve won a few contests already but you just love free money. Or hey, since the $100 prize comes on a visa gift card you could just save it for when you need a last minute present for somebody. Or keep it paper-clipped to your drivers license for the next time you want to try and get out of a speeding ticket!

Normally I avoid contests where the winners are picked solely by a public vote. But in the case of this Spendster contest, the voting is what really makes this contest so attractive. You see, the voting is already going on and is open until May 25th. And people can vote once per IP address, PER DAY. So if you shoot an entry right away and if you remember to vote for yourself once a day, you should have a pretty decent chance of landing in the top 53.

Like I said, I won a prize in Spendster’s last video contest so I can tell you first hand this isn’t some kind of weird scam. Actually last time the contest was even bigger. 97 people each won $250 and I was of the runners up. It took me all of 15 minutes to shoot my entry, plus maybe another 45 to edit it (it was just one shot) and upload it to youtube.

So if making $100 per hour sounds good to you, head here to enter the contest: http://spendster.org/ And if you win a prize, be sure to let me know….I promise I won’t demand a cut of your winnings.

UPDATE: I just heard from one reader who shot an entry for this and needs votes. Follow this link and click on the vote button to help him out. It’ll take ‘ya 6 seconds! SHANE’S ENTRY.